Classroom news:
No School, October 17, 2014
What a great time we have been having in first grade. The children continue to work hard, pushing their thinking every day. They are looking more and more like first graders every day.
We continue to work on the basics of our social thinking curriculum. We continue to talk about what is expected/unexpected behaviors. Last week we earned our goal of 60 green thoughts for the week! We had an extra recess to celebrate. We have been working on what is safe on the playground. Keeping our hands and feet to ourselves and keeping our bodies safe at all times. If you could reinforce this with your child that would be great.
Last week we worked on acceptance using read alouds. This week we worked on safe as our focus. We read books about why it is so important to be safe. Two books that we have read that deal with safety are:
Listen Buddy, by Helen Lester
Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns to Listen, by Howard Binkow
Math Focus:
How do mathematicians represent their thinking?
We have been working on two different types of story problems, Solving for the sum(4+3=_) Children need to write an equation, represent their thinking and label their problem. A Combination problem(_+_=8, _+_=8). We need to figure out which problem is which and solve. The children continue to "listen to understand" when their partner or teammate explains their thinking and testing each others ideas.
We have started Math Facts! The children absolutely love this time of math. This is a 15minute time period where the children are practicing their math facts in a variety of ways. First graders need to know and be fluent in addition and subtraction up to 10. They practice this with math worksheets, quiz each other with flash cards, and play math games. Make sure you ask them about this!
Have a Great Weekend!
